


Cruising

by cobblepologist



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Bathroom Sex, Canon Rewrite, Cruising, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Frottage, Hallucinations, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Gore, Missing Persons, Non-Explicit Sex, PWP without Porn, Smut, Stranger Sex, Strangers to Lovers, Surreal, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, is this a meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobblepologist/pseuds/cobblepologist
Summary: Which leads him here, to this bright rest stop bathroom. He washes his hands meticulously. Left, then right. Left, then right. Never gets the sick off. Riddler laughs in the fluorescent mirror. Shower water sings to him, little dirges and voices melting.AU where Edward and Oswald meet way earlier in Season 1.





	Cruising

(Oswald Cobblepot has been missing for seventy-three hours. He is smoking a cigarette in a rest area a few miles from the outskirts of Gotham. The air chills itself. He hears thunder, but there is no rain.)

Edward Nygma has been driving for miles. That thrust to deviancy, that need to leave the city had hit him again. He'd spent the day in some nameless hamlet, but weren't they all? All names on all highway signs that weren't Gotham or Metropolis seemed to blur, pale, eaten away by the sun or etched out by claws.

He thinks back to the games he's played, of those forbidden areas, the parts left unrendered. It feels like that, like he'd ventured out of bounds. The space between the two cities is a veritable no man's land.

His car stutters and he forgets what year it is, wonders if he ever knew. Half of the road, the part heading to Metropolis, is paved with good intentions. The other half doesn't even have that fortunate of an excuse.

Billboards entreating "Seeking justice? Feel two-timed? Call 1-800-xxx-DENT now!" There are bodies in these woods, like snapshots of different stages of human decay.

At one point, he sees it, the suggestion of a kill, peeking out from the treeline. Just a foot peeking out from under some rags. Probably a mob hit. He stops the car, stares for what seemed like forever. Then, with certainty, he starts the car again. He'll swerve off course in a few miles to a rest stop. A break. He needs one.

Which leads him here, to this bright rest stop bathroom. He washes his hands meticulously. Left, then right. Left, then right. Never gets the sick off. Riddler laughs in the fluorescent mirror. Shower water sings to him, little dirges and voices melting.

He turns, starts the walk back to his car. He can almost see the stars, this far from Gotham. He's closer to Metropolis than he is to home. _Is Gotham home?_

"I've died a few times, you know."

He turns to his right, and sees a small, hunched man against the brick building. He's not looking at him, but Ed glances around. There's no one else in sight, much less hearing range. He blinks.

"Do we know each other?"

"Sometimes, dear." Pause. "It never hurts as bad as you think." He does not have the bloated body of a drowning man, more like a starved one. The man is in a ratty, blue sweater, clutching a cigarette close to his face. Edward thinks about licking the embers and ashes off of this strange man's lips, of sucking the taste from his lungs. "I'm Oswald, by the way. I drowned."

Of sucking the water from his lungs, then. "Edward. Uh, Ed. What are you doing here, then?"

"My father was a ghost." Oswald laughs. "Maybe I am, too."

"My father was the devil." Stops. Scratches record. Strikes it. "No, I mean, he was a highwayman."

Peaked eyebrow. "What did he steal?"

Ed doesn't answer.

"Have you ever drowned before?"

"No," Edward lies. Gagging on armfuls of water. Father.

"It feels just like kissing. Like daisies, and silhouettes," He mocks. "Here, I can show you." Oswald throws his cigarette to the ground, stubs it out with shoes that don't look broken in.

Oswald grabs him, and it's the first kiss Ed has that _hurts_. It feels more like being eaten alive than drowning, but Edward feels eager, despite standing still, head craning lower as Oswald's hands seek his forearms.

Edward doesn't react at first; the chemicals do, brain flooded with dopamine. He licks at Oswald's lips appreciatively, and recieves a hum in return.

Edward looks to his left, out to the parking lot. Fields of waste. Bodies, articulate and still, headless like mannequin dolls, in different poses. Some with arms up, hinged on strange joints at odd angles, legs forward. Standing there, waiting. Riddler smiles, patient, in front of them. He blinks and it's gone. He really should take off his glasses.

Of course Oswald can see his distraction. He backs up, sighs, looks down. "So what are you doing out here, anyway?" Small talk. He's stepped wrong and fell off the tightrope.

Edward returns to him. Quiet, fixated, fixing. "Just cruising." This is a lie in the loosest sense of the word.

At that, Oswald perks back up, blinking. He nods solemnly, like this information is some artifact he'd uncovered himself.

As Oswald dissects this, cuts Ed apart and places him back together, Edward takes note of his appearance. Really takes note. He looks at his clothes, motheaten, damp, thinks they weren't made or meant for him. His eyes are lined carefully, irises a kind of green missing from this landscape.

"Let's go somewhere more private." There's no privacy in a place like this, they both know it. This is the stage and they are the players, but Oswald grabs his hand and leads him away, back to the bathroom. It's more of a maze than a restroom.

It feels like they're there forever. And he follows, as always.

Oswald finds the end eventually, the largest stall. Ed takes one look at the sign in there, and for the first time, notices his limp.

Oswald licks his lips like he's contemplating what to do. There is no where else to go, Edward thinks, but the shorter man pulls him closer, presses against him softly.

A thought occurs to him, of how Oswald could've been that body in the woods. Could've been the one that put it there.

"How long has it been?" Edward asks.

Oswald shrugs noncommitally, more set on feeling at the taller man's thighs. Something about his fingers kneading at his hips makes Edward shiver, utter a small "please."

This startles Oswald, out of whatever trance Edward had put him into. He licks his lips again. Edward has half a mind to kiss them sore. Riddler has the other half of it to bite them off. "We can't- come closer."

Ed nods, and Oswald slots himself against him, hand trapezing downwards. Perhaps Ed is too eager when he starts tugging at Oswald's pants, because he laughs, and it's the strangest thing he's ever heard. Like it was spawned by bells.

Ed pushes his hands away and replaces them with his own, and Oswald's arms immediately go around his neck, fingers deftly bunching up the fabric of his shirt. Seeking, scratching. A silver lining to the scars on his back.

He looks up for a moment to see himself reflected in the mirror above the sink. He looks like a stranger, and Riddler winks. Glances left to see epitaghs and elegies, "for a good time call" and a fish symbol directly after it. Oswald is panting against him.

Ruts harder against him until they're both shaking, hand around both of them, and Edward is thinking of all the numbers that had to align for this, every miniscule chance that he'd find this. Oswald's moans like an EVP recording as he arches, beautifully. _Something timeless about a man like that._  Edward dies a little too when he comes.

Then there's Oswald shaking against him, all stuttering breaths and bad judgement. Riddler slices a lock of his hair off with piano wire in the mirror, pockets it. The mirror's replaced with a picture of Kristen, smiling, serene, some faceless green man hovering over her, hand on shoulder. Edward finally closes his eyes.

Edward does not remember cleaning himself up, but after that, he is back outside, cold and shaking. Oswald is farther than he was, but still close. They are standing where they were beforehand, next to the wall outside, in front of his car.

"You're a real soldier," Oswald straightens his lapels and pats him appreciatively.

"You don't kiss like a dead person," Edward says. The joke falls flat.

"All on a technicality." Smiles and nods his head towards the corkboard made of faces.

Frowns. Riddler studies the creases in their own skin. "Did anyone come looking for you?"

"I am not a person to be missed, dear one, much less a missing person." What disturbs Edward the most is the epithet.

"Don't wait up," Oswald smiles, half-waves. Edward looks back from his car, always questioning. Oswald looks less like a person and more like some weird spectre, a part of the night framed by the age of the building. He is suddenly out of time, Edward is, and Riddler is standing next to him, also staring at this apparition.

"Goodnight and good luck," Edward says, and he doesn't know why, the words floating away from him.

He gets into his car after, backing up to the tune of Oswald's smile. Something about his skin seems bioluminescent, and it has to be some trick of the dark.

He drives for a few miles, mind out to sea. It hits him like lightning, when thunder claps again overhead, and he swerves completely off of the road, u-turning into the other lane. Riddler is screaming incoherencies at him, but he knows what he's doing. Rewind.

Once they reach the rest area again, he slams the car door open and shut, breathlessly shouting "come with me" to- to nothing. Oswald's gone. Something sick tightens around his throat.

He stands there for a few minutes, delirious with a new kind of pain, until there's a tap on his back. Looks over his shoulder. Oswald, with the most innocent eyes. He's holding a soda. Of course, he must be so thirsty, so hungry, so tired-

"Still cruising?"

Edward smiles, grabs the man into a hug. It's awkward, out of place, and Riddler tells him just as much. But Oswald doesn't seem to mind, returning it in full. They have other places to go.

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell i watched hereditary
> 
> sorry i promise one day ill write st not creepy for these two :(


End file.
